Oven appliances generally include a cabinet with a cooking chamber. One or more heating elements cook food items within the cooking chamber. In gas oven appliances, the heating elements may include a gas bake burner positioned at a bottom of the cooking chamber. Certain gas bake burners are formed as straight tubular gas burners. Straight tubular gas burners are generally oriented such that the burners run fore to aft and are centered left to right within the cabinet under the cooking chamber.
Straight tubular gas burners have drawbacks. For example, straight tubular gas burners can occupy a large volume of space below the cooking chamber and thereby reduce the potential size of the cooking chamber. As another example, a flow pattern of heated air generated by combusting gaseous fuel at a center of the cooking chamber and exhausting heated air at a perimeter of the cooking chamber can cause a floor panel of the oven appliance to get very hot, e.g., approximately thirteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit during a self-clean cycle. Such high temperatures can cause several issues, including excessive radiant heat transfer upward into the cooking chamber which can negatively affect baking performance; degradation of oven appliance components over time, such as corrosion of the straight tubular gas burner, warping and/or corrosion of a flame spreader, porcelain finish cracking, etc.; expensive floor insulation to limit heat transfer to flooring below the oven appliance; and temperature differences between front and rear portions of the cooking chamber which can negatively affect both baking and self-clean performance.
Accordingly, an oven appliance with features for heating a cooking chamber of the oven appliance while conserving valuable space below the cooking chamber would be useful. In addition, an oven appliance with features for heating a cooking chamber of the oven appliance while limiting unbalanced heating of a center of the cooking chamber would be useful.